#OurAlbion

“So, this kind of leads to the next question, of why did you choose this location? And what is this location that we’re at?”

          “This location is 306 South Superior Street. It’s right in the middle of downtown Albion, and it’s directly across the street from Kids 'N' Stuff museum. This location is also highly visible to the 500 different visitors a week that the Secretary of State brings into our downtown. And it's a beautiful building. It was renovated in the early 2000s through 2010, by the Blake family that own’s Blake’s tree service just south of town. Their friends of ours, their son was our best man at our wedding, and they acquired the building and began renovating it. It was leased to Edward Jones for a few years and then it became vacant. And because I knew Sue, I inquired about renting the space for a pop up. At the time my business was still just at the Michigan Cottage food level, and it was a pop up. And when I toured the space I was really excited, I was really thrilled and impressed with how finished the building was, and how structurally sound and secure it was. We’re away from the river, so we don't have a lot of flooding damage from the river like a lot of the downtown business buildings have experienced. And because it was renovated in the early 2000s it was turn key, you know ready to go. So, I choose this building, this particular sight because of the reasons and here we are” 

“So, kind of moving towards more of talking Albion and the community a little bit. What does Albion mean to you? Are there specific people, locations, feelings, what kind of sums up Albion for you?”

          “For me, the way I describe Albion is that it's a really nerdy town. It's just really nerdy, educational, and exciting, and interesting. There's people that visit the town because they had family members that lived here, had businesses here and they want to come back and see what where their family member had spent so much time. And why did their family member talk so fondly of Albion. So they come back and they might stay at the hotel and they’re doing family research at the library. And they're just completely smitten with it. There’s just this educational, fun educational aspect that Albion has that people, people get to experience. People from all over get to experience it. 

         Our citizens I say are really nerdy because we have the Albion area lifelong learners and they have a lot of interesting programming and class topics on certain piano pieces or artists or you know they might do a deep dive, a causal deep dive, on vaccines, fermentation of vaccine development. Just really really nerdy. Right now this weekend we have two really interesting events taking place. I'm not exactly sure on the titles of them but one is a women’s church conference, so you'll see some folks, ladies, staying at the hotel and then they have break out sessions for their church ministries. I think another church, a local church, is hosting it and bringing everybody in. So that is really neat and interesting and educational. And we also have the Michigan History Conference that is taking place this weekend. Their catalog of sessions and workshops sound really incredible. They're doing things like touring the observatory at Albion College campus, learning about the wild rice harvest at the Kalamazoo River in Hannah Street bridge, there’s a cemetery tour, there’s an African American history of Albion talk given by Bob Wall for this Michigan History Conference. Just a lot of interesting educational things. So to me summing up Albion it's a nerdy town. I mean if you're fascinated by something in life we’re probably like, we probably like have a secret expert on it living right here”

“So, rolling into the next one, would you consider Albion to be your home and why?”

         “Yes, Albion is my home. Why? Because. Because it is. Because it is where I learn, this is where I work, this is where I relax. My relaxation, my hobbies are hiking, walking, mushroom hunting, kayaking, exploring, so"

“So, what does Albion mean to you?”

         “I see what you mean by your questions are similar. Yeah. Albion means everything to me. It means everything. Family, friends, food, learning, life, everything”

“So, now I wanna kinda flip it a little bit, and you've said a lot of positive things, a lot of cool things that have happened with Albion, but in what ways do you think Albion could improve?” 

         “I think Albion could improve by thinking bigger, thinking bigger. I shared earlier that we have a lot of visitors to town for one particular state organization and that usual surprises people, surprises locals when I give that number, that we have that many people coming to town just for one purpose and then they see other things and there's been small business, entrepreneurs that are just launching and my advice to them for this town is to think bigger. Don’t just think of, don’t just think of our main cross streets and the residents that reside there as your customer base. Think bigger. We bring in a lot of people from the region and we’re a special place and the region knows that, so think bigger. Think about them”

“Then lastly, I’d like you to describe Albion in one word by saying Albion is blank. You can take a second if you’d like”

         “Alright, Albion is everything”